Letter: Current circumstance direct parallel to Obama

The letter "GOP can help avert top court disaster," July 3, complained of a "hypocritical plan to conduct (U.S. Supreme Court) confirmation hearings" without presenting relevant objective content.

President Barack Obama appointed two credentialed and well-qualified liberal Supreme Court justices, (Sonia Sotomayor, 2009; and Elena Kagan, 2010). The Kagan appointment, in his second year, was also a congressional election year. This is a direct parallel to the current circumstance of President Donald Trump appointing his second justice also in a congressional election year.

As is their right and privilege, Sotomayor and Kagan have consistently voted as liberal court justices and will serve in that capacity for many years.

No Democrats voiced concern or lobbied to stop the Obama/Kagan selection in the congressional election year. Today, because it will likely be a conservative justice appointment rather than a liberal, Democrats are crying foul and opposing eminently credentialed and qualified jurists on strictly ideological and partisan basis.

If Trump was in his final presidential year with Democrat control of the Senate, is it possible to imagine that Senate allowing a lame-duck Republican to make such an important appointment rather than awaiting the pending election outcome?

It was a Senate controlled by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, who forced in the 51-vote nuclear option to impose their will, violating long-serving Senate precedent and creating new precedent.